Abstract:

Traditional design procedures of asphalt mixtures are based on volumetric parameters and the compliance with certain mechanical and functional properties, and do not provide minimum requirements in terms of cracking resistance, a property that plays a major role in the durability of the pavement, and neither promote the use of sustainable technologies.
In order to overcome these barriers and seek the balance between properties, this doctoral thesis aims to develop a multi-labelling scheme for asphalt mixtures for thin asphalt wearing courses according to their mechanical, functional and environmental performance. The developed labelling system allows the comparison and benchmarking of different asphalt mixtures, providing the chance to choose the most safety and environmentally demanding option for each specific situation.
The development of this tool involved the generation of an extensive database on mechanical functional and environmental performance of bituminous mixture; the lack of information about some properties made it necessary to carry out a laboratory testing and a monitoring phase to complete the database. Once all the data was collected, the labelling strategy for evaluating the performance of thin asphalt wearing courses was designed.
The approached methodology is flexible enough to be tailored to suit countries’ specific requirements because construction techniques, used materials, traffic, weather conditions, age of the pavement, preservation techniques, etc., differ from one country to another.
In order to realize the potential of the developed tool, the study was focused on the Spanish case because different Spanish IMs were involved and all the collected data belongs to the Spanish road network. The findings in this research clearly demonstrate that the developed labelling scheme shows promise; it allows not only the assignation of performance labels to any asphalt mixture based on its attributes but also the comparison of features between different asphalt mixtures for thin asphalt wearing courses.